Articles filed under 'Reviews'
Phil Town’s upcoming book Rule #1 is sure to become an investment classic. I had the pleasure of reading the book after receiving an advanced copy from Crown Publishers, the distributor of the book which is scheduled to be released in March. What I found was a practical, no-nonsense approach to stocks that will do for investing what David Bach’s The Automatic Millionaire did for personal finance. While Town himself admits that the techniques he describes have been used for years, his true genius lies in his ability to translate classic investing principles into a straight-forward approach that can achieve at least 15% returns a year with little risk.
Robert Kiyosaki’s book, Cashflow Quadrant: Rich Dad’s Guide to Financial Freedom, is an inspirational and compelling guide to breaking free from the earnings “rat race”, by moving from the “left side of the quadrant” where most people work to the “right side” and ultimately financial freedom. Kiyosaki outlines how those of us locked into jobs or self-employment can get ahead by becoming financially literate and consistently building financial assets that generate income; freeing ourselves to spend time doing the things we truly enjoy.
Here are two interesting new websites, in the Web 2.0 spirit, focused on stocks.
Predict Wall Street - This site allows you to make daily predictions on the move of a stock or index. As with a lot of Web 2.0 offerings, it gets better with each additional user. If more people start using this site, it could become a great resource for stock research. My username on the site is “investorgeek”. I’d like to give you a link to my predictions, but it doesn’t seem possible. I think I’ll submit a suggestion to the site to provide this.
Stock Digg - This site, obviously inspired by the social news site Digg, lets users submit news item related to stocks. Submissions can be voted on; popular submissions make it to the front page. I think you can submit blog articles as well (wink wink).
Both of these sites are fairly new, but have some potential as they continue to grow. Enjoy.
Friday, Feb. 10, 2006
by Jason
In Part 1 of this article, we looked at how to use the Morningstar Premium Fund Screener, and I showed you two screens I use to select top funds for my portfolio. This article will move on from the screening phase of the stock screening process to the analysis phase, where we actually choose the candidates for possible investment. The key to successful analysis is understanding how to read the results views provided by the screener. In addition to the basic views provided by Morningstar, the premium screener also allows you to create up to two additional views. By creating custom views that package your most important statistics together, decision making can be more rapid and accurate.
Frank bought me The Only Investment Guide You’ll Ever Need by Andrew Tobias for Christmas, which finally arrived at my doorstep on Saturday. With the assistance of Tobias’ great sense of humor, it’s a quick and enjoyable read. The book provides sound advice on when it’s appropriate for people to begin considering their investment options, and what those options are.
I’ve spent a lot of time in the past week working with the Morningstar Premium Fund Screener, a tool used to search for mutual funds based on filtering criteria. Think of a screener as both a search engine and a pair of blinders. Not only will it help you discover new funds but it will also keep you away from funds that may post high short-term results but have a lot of inherent risks.
This screener is the best I’ve seen for mutual funds and in addition to access to Morningstar analyst reports, makes the Morningstar Premium subscription worth every penny of the $135/yr fee. If you can get a friend or two to split it with you, all the better! Think of it this way, if you have $15,000 invested in mutual funds and this subscription lets you pick up an extra 1% annually, it has more than paid for itself.
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Tuesday, Jan. 10, 2006
by Chris
I’ve become very interested recently in fellow investment blogger Phil Town’s site, and so I’ve been reading it from start to finish. After reading much of his site, I’ve come to enjoy his style of writing and investing. Ever the skeptic though, I wanted to make sure he’s not just some shill on the web hawking his wares to an unsuspecting public. Everything I found has been good, and I was even able to find a new resource that he recommends frequently called the INVESTools Investor Toolbox.
About Phil Town
It’s important when investing to pick your advisors carefully. I have kind of a rating system for investment advice.
Poor - Any guy on the web. Pay little attention.
Fair - What he says passes the reason test. I’ll listen skeptically.
Good - Good track record, good advice. I’m listening, but still fact checking.
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Thursday, Dec. 29, 2005
by Chris
